


Never Again

by arrozconmangos



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 06:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrozconmangos/pseuds/arrozconmangos
Summary: While Gert and Chase are trapped at the Yorkes, Victor Stein shows up instead of Tina.





	Never Again

**Author's Note:**

> A consideration that Gert would have reacted differently at the end of Season 2 had she known the full-extent of Chase's situation. And I just need more Chase whump. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

Dale dabs at his forehead with his sleeve. He’s been in a perpetual flop sweat for at least ten years now.

There are few times in Dale’s life where he doesn’t feel like a bumbling fool, despite being an accomplished and wealthy scientist. Case in point, he currently has one daughter missing, one daughter locked in the basement lab, and one daughter’s boyfriend nodding off on truth serum in front of him.

He glances up at his wife, who’s watching him with a frown. “Now, what?”

“Now,” says a voice from behind Dale. “I’d like to speak to my son.”

Dale spins around and a spike of fear shoots through his gut at the sight of Victor Stein.

“Oh, okay. Hi, hello. That’s. that’s fine. Here he is.” Dale gestures, stepping to the side.

“Really?” Stacey quips, side-eyeing Dale. “Just like that?”

“Now,” Victor intones. He stretches his arms out in front of him, fingers intertwined as the joints pop and crack. “And alone… Please.”

* * *

Gert has been sitting in the de facto cage her parents put her in seething for so long that she actually begins to nod off. That is, until the door creaks open and Chase is heaved through onto the floor.

“Hey!” She starts, scrambling to her feet. “Hey, assholes!”

The door is slammed shut and locked with a heavy _clunk._

“Chase?” Gert pivots to where he’s struggling to push himself up from the cement. “Let me help you. What did they do? I can’t believe they would do this. They’re completely—.”

She gasps. Literally, in the most dramatic way, the air is sucked from her lungs when she actually gets a good look at Chase as he finally sits up.

“What the _fuck_ did they do?” She hisses, angry tears springing to her eyes. “Chase…”

She reaches for him instinctually, but hesitates, hands in mid-air, unsure where to touch.

The left side of his face is bruised beyond recognition, eye swollen, lip split. He holds himself stiffly, one arm wrapped around his middle as he tries to rock into a seated position. He slumps further, into Gert’s side when she kneels beside him.

“_Oh_, I got a headache.”

She fumbles to hold onto him. “You have… more than that. What happened? Did Dale—?”

No, her mind can’t even go there. She can’t imagine Dale being violent. He could never even squish a spider in the house, instead catching errant bugs and taking them outside, or down to the lab to continue the ‘circle of life.’ No. In fact, she’s pretty sure she could take Dale down in a fight, if the odds were even.

She finds a tissue in her pocket and dabs gently at the blood on Chase’s brow. “Who did this?”

Chase flinches away from her touch and squints, disoriented. “Gert?”

Gert’s heart beats hard inside her chest. This… this violence changes things. Yes, Stacey had made Old Lace and her sick, and yes, they’d been locked in the lab, but those things were still hands-off. Clinical and cold, like so many things their parents have done.

Even putting kids in a magic death pod didn’t require getting their hands dirty.

“Gert?” Chase grips her forearms. He sounds sharper, more focused. “Gert, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

She realizes she’s gasping for breath, air rattling thin through her lungs.

“I’m okay.” She repeats, trying to make herself believe it. She closes her eyes and takes as slow and deep a breath as she can manage. When she opens them, she focuses only on what’s right in front of her, only on Chase.

Looking into his eyes grounds her, makes her feel calm in such an intense way that she can hardly handle it sometimes.

“Are _you_ okay?” she manages to ask, even as her voice shakes.

He nods, too fast to have really given it any thought, and shrugs. “Just a scratch.”

“Tell me what happened,” Gert presses.

Chase sighs heavily. “Well, there was truth serum, so sorry if your parents know a little too much about your… bedroom… life now.” He glances at her, a boyish smile tugging at his lips.

Gert feel her eyes crossing, but she straightens her spine. “Okay. Okay, well it doesn’t matter what they think anyway.”

Chase grows quiet and shifts away from her, but keeps his hand on her wrist, fingers twisting in the canvas of her jacket sleeve. He sighs.

“So… then my dad showed up.”

Gert stares at him, unblinking, as such a simple statement connects so many dots. Mr. Stein was violent. Mr. Stein was violent in a brutal way that could not be denied since the results were right in front her on Chase’s skin.

“You said that was a one-time thing,” she says helplessly, referring to the last time when Mr. Stein had attacked Chase with the fistigons in their lab. “Because of his brain thing?”

Even saying it, she feels silly. That explanation never made sense, but she’d bought it at the time because there wasn’t time to ask a lot of questions. They’d run so soon afterwards and there’d been too many other things to worry about. And, if she was being really honest, she’d _wanted_ to believe it. That it was a one time incident was easier than thinking about her friend in a bad situation for who knows how long.

Chase had always had a poor relationship with his father and Victor Stein had always been the parent to avoid within their group (with Tina Minoru a close second). It isn’t hard to picture him being violent. Even less hard to connect Chase’s random injuries and sick days over the years.

Gert always wanted to be the kind of person that would stick up for anyone in need. To be the person that could defend those in bad situations, when they couldn’t defend themselves. But, here, when it was this close to her, she didn’t want to know.

How _weak_, she chastises herself.

Thinking of Chase in pain just hurt too much to handle.

Chase shrugs. “I lied. And it wasn’t.”

He swipes at his still bloody lip with his shirt sleeve.

“Chase, I’m so sorry,” Gert starts. “I should’ve—”

“Stop.” Chase sighs, looking down at the floor. He shifts around until he can carefully lean back agains the fence partition that holds them. “It was better for no one to know. What would you have done?”

Gert leans closer to him, indignant at the suggestion that she would stand idly by. “I would do exactly what I’m going to do now, make sure he never even gets _close_ enough to touch you again.”

Chase looks up at the sudden anger in her voice. He grabs her hand and squeezes. In the low light, his good eye shines with unshed tears.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” Gert says, gripping his hand tightly back. “I’m your bodyguard now. I have a dinosaur and if I have to learn tai kwon do, or whatever, I’ll do it. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you. I can’t stand this. Chase, I—.” Her teeth click shut on what she was about to say. Maybe not the best time for that.

Chase smiles and leans into her shoulder. “Me, too.”

Gert hopes the blush that rushes to her cheeks is hidden by her tan. She lifts her arm to hook around his shoulders and pull him close. She presses her lips to a patch of clean skin on his temple.

“Never again.”

Chase takes a shaky breath beside her and she’s reminded of possible unseen injuries, not that there’s anything she can do about it at the moment.

“I always wanted to run away,” Chase says softly. “I’m glad that I got to do it with you.”

“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Gert laughs.

Chase rolls his eyes. “I mean it. Gert, I really love—”

The door across from them explodes open, literally ripped from the hinges to reveal Molly, eyes glowing, Karolina, Nico, and Alex right behind her.

Nico presses into the room, eyes scanning everywhere for a threat. “We need to go, now.”

Gert scrambles to her feet, reaching to help Chase up beside her. Karolina grabs his other arm.

And then they’re out in the hallway, running, again.

* * *


End file.
